Frostpony: Of Hounds & Horses

Rini power walked through the lamplight streets of Cherrywood.

It was remarkable that she had much of any energy left after an extra few hours of strain. Even now she checked over her shoulder to ensure she wasn’t followed. The events of the attack were still as fresh as an apple, despite her healing cheek and her recent revelation with Caleb and his dogs didn’t help either.

Scattered packs of Diamidians made their way through the streets with equal haste, most keeping to themselves.

Not a single pony walked among them.

With the streets so sparse it felt odd, empty, void of life. The consequence of cutting a town’s population in half. It might not have been a big, sprawling city, or even a large town, but that only enlarged the effect. Nameless faces she was so used to seeing were no longer part of the picture.

She had to take a moment and breathe. While physical exhaustion held little power over her, stress was another beast entirely.

Rini remembered seeing Gale’s diner the night of the attack. She remembered how Riley told her about it being picked clean the morning after, and all the history and fun memories pried at and auctioned off by a band of vultures.

No, not vultures, predators. At least vultures had the courtesy to pray on the dead.

Then there was the accident with the crane…her meeting with Caleb…her encounter with their captain…

“Breath Rini, Breath. Inhale, wait three seconds, exhale.”

Slowly, gradually, the lead weight pulling on her head lessened and her rolling shoulders relaxed.

“By the skies, forbid the day that becomes a regular thing.”

It was a small, preventative measure, but it’d already worked wonders in keeping her head in check. It was a far better alternative to some of the other options she may have been presented with. Booze, drugs, cigarettes, she wasn’t one for vice via substance.

With the moment behind her she prepared to continue her trek home, but as Rini idly looked around her she spotted something.

Nested on the side of a back alley wall was an emblem, painted in bright yellow.

“No way,” Rini’s vision locked onto the symbol, a hundred bells ringing off in her head. “Gale you sly fox.”

A smile crept across her face as she discreetly made her way behind the buildings. An hour was all she had but curfew could wait for all she cared.

Quickly, Rini followed the trail and found a series of emblems, some so similar they could’ve been mistaken had Rini lacked a keen memory. Decoys that led nowhere but she kept to the path and checked over her shoulder at every turn.

“How did he escape? He had to have hidden his scent somehow. Gale wouldn’t have had access to his shower.”

Rini came upon a T-junction and looked about, unable to find another clearly visible symbol. In a moment however she began looking and her eyes quickly fell upon a dumpster which she looked behind, finding another symbol with an arrow.

She smiled. “Have to admit, wasn’t expecting my sessions spent as a rogue to come into play like this.”

Checking and double checking, Rini sniffed as best she could for any sign of Gale, only finding the smell of brick, snow and the subtle perfume of sooty smoke greeting her. So much so she had to raise her scarf and blow some air around to warm her nose up. A sense of gleeful joy creeping in at her crippled friend’s achievements.

“Seriously, how did you do that Gale? I’m no bloodhound, but damn you were thorough!”

The whole trip was roughly ten minutes, give or take, but she eventually reached a dead end without a symbol. There was no back door, no dumpster or trash can, no air con unit or chimney stack. The three walls surrounding her were featureless brickwork with no windows nor light to illuminate them.

It was yet another of Gale’s little tricks, Rini knew this, but this time she had to stop and pause to look about.

With how dark it was, getting a good look was difficult, and Rini began trying to feel out the bricks. Her eyes had already adjusted to the darkness but the colourless, fuzzy nature dimmed the details.

There were no loose bricks or hidden switches, none she could depress or pull upon. No pattern she could exploit or make sense of. Whether or not Gale had altered the area somehow or if this tiny sliver of town had always been like this she couldn’t guess.

The only clue Rini could pull on was how deliberately bland and uninteresting this particular spot was. “No gamemaster worth his salt would dangle a carrot but keep it from reach, not unless he didn’t…want…”
The solution practically slapped her; it was so obvious.

“This is a red herring isn’t it? Oh you want me to get bored looking for ghosts and leave, don’t ya?”

Rini stepped back and restarted. She drew her gaze upward towards the second and third stories of the building she stood behind up at the chimneys and smokestacks. No piping nor window lined the walls even that high. No flaw or loose brick adorned the walls, or any other detail.

It was uncanny to say the least, like a picture of a place that shouldn’t exist.

“Oh yeah, you’ve thought this through. Am I even in the right place? No, it wouldn’t make sense, you didn’t lead me here for nothing.”

Her mind quickly worked itself ragged trying to put the pieces together into something cohesive.

“If I were a paranoid pegasus on the run from Diamond Dogs, where would I go?” Rini cupped her jaw, lightly rubbing her chin. “If I were Gale, he’d probably try putting himself in their paws, ask himself what they would expect. They’d hear “Pegasus” and expect him to be high up somewhere, broken wing be damned.”

“So what they wouldn’t expect,” She turned to look towards the floor. “Is to be underground, right?”

Cobblestone bricks lined the cold, hard ground. Covered by a layer of crunchy snow that only showed her boot prints. Thinking for a moment, she turned and checked around the corner to make sure she wasn’t being followed again, having been reminded by the trail she’d left.

Only to see no trail existed…

“Huh?” She said aloud. Rini turned and found the ground around her still held marks of her presence, but there was nothing leading into her location.

Her trail had simply vanished, denying any ability to follow her sure, but unsettling her in the process.

“Okay Gale, this is getting creepy now. Just how are you doing this?”

Rini resumed her investigation and drew her attention towards the floor. Whatever Gale had done to achieve that had to be magical, but Rini had no capacity to sense magic. Arcane arts were something Diamond Dogs simply couldn’t ever draw from, being nonmagical creatures.

With no ability to see the cobblestone through the snow, it fell to her senses to pick up the pieces. She tested the ground around her on all fours, feeling it through her gloves. Her eyes lazily closed as she focused on gliding through the cracks in the cobble, each brick none different from the last.

She had to be there for a while, five minutes, ten, fifteen, at this rate she’d might have to run the gauntlet to get home.

Rini’s persistence paid off as eventually, she found something. A depression buried within one of the bricks, almost like a handle.

“Gotcha!”

With a mighty strain she pulled with both paws, and a heavy trap door disguised by stone brick flew open. Snow piled onto the space beside it and the passage revealed a hidden stairwell below, leading into a steel door.

Once more she stepped back, taking in the reveal (and also huffing from the lift) with a smile.

A quiet chuckle escaped her as she flicked her wrist, the euphoria of a puzzle solved alike that of a job well done.

“Gale, you certainly know how to make a girl earn her bread, I’ll tell ya that.”

Without further delay, Rini descended down the stairs closing the door above her, hoping whatever effect Gale has conceals its presence. Pitch blackness engulfed her and she made careful work on the stone cold stairs, if she slipped there’s no telling how she’d land.

Rini’d slipped down enough stairs already, she didn’t need to build a record.

When she got to what she was sure was the bottom, she searched for and knocked on the door.

Much like she’d come to expect from Gale, there was no immediate response. Unlike last time however she wasn’t left to dry, and the sound of a metal hatch sliding open met her ears alongside the murmuring of voices. The smallest amount of light outlining a vague shape on the other side, but all else was obscured.

“Password?”

“Gale, open this door before I beat you to death with a copy of the third edition.”

"Yeah, that's Rini."

The hatch shut and several locks, chains and bolts were undone from the otherside. A full half minute’s worth of security was shifted through before the door creaked open, and Rini was let inside.

She was treated to a darkened room scarcely lit by candlelight. The gentle hum of machinery and the quiet hissing of pipes sounding all around. A boiler sat in the back of the room, its closed furnace providing some amount of light and warmth to those inside.

Bedrolls, bread baskets and bookcases full of unknown articles lined one of the walls. A chalkboard full of pinned pieces of paper and lists upon lists hung from the other. In the centre of the room, a table with a map of the town and neighbouring area sat with all manner of small objects littered across it.

The highlight however, was the sheer number of ponies all tucked together inside. Many were asleep, whole families hidden under blankets or atop crude bunk beds. Most lay undisturbed by her presence but some stood cautious of Rini.

All she could do is offer a nervous wave as she turned towards Gale, who’d since fitted a new wing brace.

“I have several questions.” Rini raised a digit. “Where did you get a safehouse from? How did you do the magic stuff above? Was the dead end always like that? Or did you mess around with it somehow? And how the crap did you evad-Mphm!”

Gale jammed a hoof over her mouth with a smug grin. “All in good time Rini, ah can’t explain everything but who knows? If you're observant ya could piece it together yourself.”

He then stepped away, letting go of her. “Thanks for your help that night, ah can see it wasn’t easy.” Gale added.

Rini unconsciously rubbed her chin as she met him by the table. “So you’ve been hiding here? Pretty elaborate, I gotta say.”

“Storm Shelter’s big, but not enough to fit a whole town. Some ponies had to make due and renovate.”

A quick glance revealed a couple ponies in the middle of said renovation, seemingly adding more rooms and space with their own magic.

“We’re below a charcoal kiln, I’m good friends with the owner, he won’t sell us out if it bought him a mansion.”

Rini turned to see who said that. A dark yellow earth pony with a pinetree green mane stood beside the main table, giving her a smile upon sight.

“Oh! Rini, that’s Corn Kernel, he’s the one that let me in after I fled.”

“Thirty-second horseshoe infantry, reservist anyway.” He added, his military background obvious by his voice.

Shortly after, a few more ponies emerged from the crowd. All giving her friendly smiles and the occasional wave.

“That’s Two Bits, banker. Pencil Sketch, artist, and Rad-”

“Radiant Path?” Rini finished, turning towards the bright white clergypony, who nervously pushed his glasses back up the bridge of his nose. “S-Sorry about what happened.”

He didn’t speak, but met her gaze with an accepting smile.

She mirrored him and gave a wave to the others around them before turning back to Gale.

“So, much do you wanna know?”